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The box was a prototype of a digital video recorder from Ascot, England, start-up Promise TV that can record and index an entire week's worth of British digital-television programming.
To Doctorow, an editor of the popular culture blog BoingBoing and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's European outreach coordinator, Promise TV has broken impressive new ground with its DVR, which it plans to unveil next month.
"There wasn't a jaw in the room that wasn't scraping the floor during (the) demo," he said. "It was genuinely futuristic."
Dominic Ludlam, Promise TV's lead developer, said the project was commissioned by the BBC and uses commodity PC hardware, including a bank of hard drives totaling 3.2 terabytes.
At week's end, new programming overwrites previous programs, although those recordings can be archived on separate storage devices.
"This method of recording transmitted television completely removes the need for viewers to preselect programs they wish to record or watch," said Ludlam. "This could well herald a change in the way we watch television. No longer need there be any peak viewing time or head-to-head competition between channels."
Not everyone is as impressed as Doctorow, however. Chris Rowen, a research analyst at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Capital Markets, said Promise TV sounds like little more than a souped-up TiVo personal recording device.
"They're compensating for the fact that they don't have advanced listings by recording everything and then indexing it after the fact," Rowen said. "That obviously is not going to work in an 80-channel environment. So they're not bringing anything new to the table on indexing."
But Doctorow remains floored by what he saw. He said that not long ago, the notion of TiVo recording 15 hours of television was revolutionary. And now, he said, technology has reached the point where it's possible to imagine recording 30, 60 or even 90 days of programming.
"It becomes like a Wayback Machine for television," he said.
See more CNET content tagged:
Cory Doctorow, TiVo Inc., DVR, video recorder, programming
awkwardness. I'll wait for a significantly more sophisticated design
with a serious shot at full usr control.
awkwardness. I'll wait for a significantly more sophisticated design
with a serious shot at full usr control.
In Japan Sony Vaio X series can record one week of every show in every single channel :)
In Japan Sony Vaio X series can record one week of every show in every single channel :)
Given that a week is 168 hrs long, that means that one could record about 17 channels of information
in that space.
Given that a week is 168 hrs long, that means that one could record about 17 channels of information
in that space.
Until then, zzzzzzzzzzz.
Until then, zzzzzzzzzzz.
Or you can just torrent the show's you want see. that is what most of the people I know do.
Or you can just torrent the show's you want see. that is what most of the people I know do.
No MPAA, I'm not even remotely interested in pirating your stuff.
- Nice idea but....
- by GrandpaN1947 July 31, 2005 5:36 PM PDT
- I'd rather have my home-made HD-DVR made with legacy components without the digital flag. At least I can record the few shows I want the way I want them.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(14 Comments)No MPAA, I'm not even remotely interested in pirating your stuff.